February 24, 2012

23 British Publishing Euphemisms Decoded by Industry Experts

A tongue-in-cheek glossary from U.K. editors, publishers, authors and agents

By Janice Harayda

The British have a gift for coded speech. Like Southerners who say “Bless your heart” when they mean the opposite, they salt their conversations with euphemisms that only the most credulous tourist would take at face value.

The U.K. publishing industry has its own subset of words and phrases that deflect embarrassing or inconvenient realities. A few appeared in my American-accented “40 Publishing Buzzwords, Clichés and Euphemisms Decoded” and “More Publishing Buzzwords,” which gathered highlights from witty translations submitted at the Twitter hashtag #pubcode last year. Other examples of the British talent for indirection surfaced yesterday in a new wave of definitions at #publishingeuphemisms. Here are some of the best of those late arrivals (a list that excludes a few tweets that gave off an intentional or unintentional whiff of those posted in 2011), followed by the decoder’s name.

“ahead of its time”: “It bombed” Julie Bertagna, author of Exodus and other young-adult novels

“Just a couple of tiny changes needed”: “I’m about to send you 27 pages of edits.” Jill Mansell, author of A Walk in the Park and other novels

‘”literary-commercial cross-over”: “Has a plot but not too many adverbs” Nina Bell, author of Lovers and Liars and other novels

“The manuscript is nearly finished”: “I’m up to chapter 3” Karen Wheeler, former fashion editor of a British newspaper and the author of ToutSweet: Hanging Up My High Heels for a New Life in France and other books.

“This doesn’t fit in my current list”: “The restraining order is in the post” Cath Bore, writer

“We’re not sure a head shot will work on the jacket”: “Look in a mirror” Christopher Wakling , novelist

“We’ve changed the pub date to give the book the best exposure”: “We’ve f*cked up the schedule.” Jane Judd, literary agent

“You seem to have fallen through the net”: “We don’t send cheques unless we’re forced to.” Rosy Cole, author of The Wolf and the Lamb

“Your novel isn’t right for us at this time” = “or any time luv” Cath Bore

Janice Harayda has been the book columnist for Glamour, the book editor of the Plain Dealer, and a vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle. One-Minute Book Reviews is ranked one of the top 40 book blogs by Technorati and top 40 book-review blogs by Alexa Internet was named one of New Jersey’s best blogs by New Jersey Monthly.

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Reblogged this on The Missing Link and commented:
February, the greyest of all months, was brightened up for authors, agents and publishers this year when many got together on Twitter to take the mick out of popular publishing euphemisms. Enjoy!

[…] Publisher-speak is notorious. When UK agent Jonny Geller created the hashtag #publishingeuphemisms earlier this year the Twitterverse generated an embarrassingly long list of expressions that try ever so politely to avoid telling a version of the truth. One-Minute Book Reviews blogger Janice Harayda has an amusing if slightly demoralising collection of them here. […]